Sunday, June 29, 2008

Reading: Miscellania

It was noted that I haven't posted anything in a while, which I refuted, until I realized it has been since the 20th. But I've been starting a new job and moving, so hopefully that will excuse the absence.

Since I'm in a new place, I'm getting to experience something rare for me. It's almost enjoyable, especially since I know the experience will be fleeting. It's that rare time in a new library district when I don't have my card number memorized! I received an e-mail notice that I needed to return or renew a couple books, and I realized without a memorized card number I'd have to walk ALL THE WAY downstairs to find my wallet to retrieve the card. Oh the inconvenience!

But the slowdown in card memorization has not slowed my desire to have a precarious stack of books on my bedside table. This doesn't mean I'm READING them that fast. About 50 to 75 percent of books I check out have to be renewed, returned and checked out again before I actually get to them, but these are a few that I'm starting or partway through already:

Is Belief In God Good, Bad, or Irrelevant: A Professor And a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism & Christianity
The book is a collection of e-mails between Preston Jones, a Lutheran theology professor, and Greg Graffin, a biology lecturer but better known as the lead singer of Bad Religion.
It's oddly engaging for a collection of e-mails, and gets much better as the book progresses. Jones is initially star-struck by e-mailing Graffin, and as such the debate is rather one-sided with Jones eating up every word from the veteran punk. Later on the book becomes much more substantive with some hearty debate on what belief in god does for people, with Graffin arguing thte negative against Jones' positive.
I tend to agree with Graffin, and even moreso as he starts to explain his belief in biology and Naturalism as the root of his faith. Many Christians would like to dismiss non-religious beliefs as without faith, but Graffin seems to have a much more spiritual understanding of his biological beliefs and what they mean for him.
But Jones makes some great points as well, with an amazing argument about the destructive nature of the old cliché "God works in mysterious ways."

This Is Your Brain On Music and Musicophilia
I've always got some book about the psychology of music sitting on my "To Read" list, but never get around to it. I've got both of these out from the library, and the former sitting next to me for tonight's reading. I got interested in actually picking up a book after hearing an episode of Radio Lab called "Pop Music." There's a great story in that episode (which can be found on the front page of the show's website) about people who hallucinate music in their head all the time.

Uglies, Pretties, Specials and Extras
(no spoilers I promise, Patrik!) It's a future dystopia about Tally Youngblood, a teenager who lives in a world where every person gets plastic surgery to be super-model gorgeous on their 16th birthday. Human-rights violations are abound like nerds at a comic convention.
I'm through the originally intended trilogy (Uglies, Pretties and Specials) and I'm about to dive into the new book, Extras. I'm told it'll be a movie, and I'm glad to be on top of this one before that happens. I was shamefully reading the Harry Potter series frantically as the first movie came out.

A People's History Of The United States
Eh, if it's good enough for Matt Damon.
When I nabbed this at Powell's a few weeks back, I passed a book called A Patriot's History Of The United States. Howard Zinn subtitled People's "1492 - Present" and the authors of Patriot's subtitled theirs "From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror."
I'd add commentary here, but I think the comparison speaks for itself.

That's what I'm reading. Now if only that pesky job would stop getting in the way.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Watched: "The Fall"

From the outside, our marriage looks happy and content, but there is one major rift that divides the house of Walkhalter: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as interpreted by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón.

I claim that the film was amazing, and Megan claims the film sucked, mainly because Megan focuses on silly things like plots (in a film) or lyrics (in a song), and I'm focus on visuals (in a film) or the instrumentation (in a song).

Megan will argue that I'm wooed easily by pretty visuals, which allows me to overlook holes in the plots of films and often offensive lyrics in songs.

And, as usual, she's right. As such, The Fall is right up my alley. It's all visuals, and going in I was warned that the story itself was lacking a little bit. Story schmory I say!

The visuals were, as expected, stunning. It was like watching a really beautiful, somewhat surreal painting on screen, but I'd like to argue that although the focus was visuals, the plot was not lacking, but intentionally subtle and subdued.

I saw an interview with Baz Luhrman, of Moulin Rouge fame, in which he explained what makes a movie like Singin' In The Rain so good: Minimal plot, maximum execution.

The Fall is exactly that. I could explain the whole film without missing a any details in about ten minutes. But the simplicity merely leaves room for the director to pull out all the proverbial stops and hit a grand slam for every other aspect of the film.

I'm not saying the plot didn't matter, in fact that's part of what attracted me to the film. A young girl with a broken arm at a LA hospital in the 1920s befriends a man who fell off a horse. Suicidal, the man is trying to get at some drugs, and manipulates the girl by weaving beautiful tales of adventure, and stopping at key points until she does some sort of task for her.

The stories result in a more dramatic version of A Princess Bride with the listener interjecting often, but in this case actually changing the story as it goes. Unlike Kevin Arnold who groans at kissing scenes, the girl in The Fall is gunning for them.

If it's still in theaters, I recommend giving it a shot. The film is beautiful, which I should expect from an old music video director, and the story isn't at all disappointing (but I could be as wrong as I allegedly am about the third Harry Potter film, so fair warning). On a mean note, the director calls himself "Tarsem." Just "Tarsem." Which is kind of pretentious, but if he makes films this pretty, I'll forgive him.

Monday, June 16, 2008

My Lambchop Dream

I think it's a good sign when I dream about the mundane tasks of my coming day. I figure if I have some level of stress or darkness in my life, I'll have nightmares. Or if there's some unresolved issue in my heart, I'll have rather obscure dreams with some odd symbolism I need to decode.

I say this because that's happened before. I hate the nightmares, which I get especially when I'm sick. And the obscure dreams have led to some really interesting and transformative thoughts, so I don't argue with it.

But if my sleep is filled with unusual, dreamlike tales of things I've got to do the next day, things must be going pretty well.

That's what happened Saturday to Sunday as I slept in Portland. In my dream, I did some mapquest searching for a CD store I wanted to go to on Burnside. In reality, I was looking for Music Millennium, and did find it the next day where I grabbed my dad a father's day album and some Duffy, Bo Diddley and Arvo Pärt for myself.

But in my dream I couldn't find the name or address, so I just got on a bicycle and started riding through town. I grabbed some braided bread with carmel drizzles on it, and I perused some shops.

Oddly enough, my bicycle had a radio. I was listening to a broadcast of a Lambchop concert held in some Portland-based establishment. They opened their set with a cover of Feist's "I'm Sorry" from The Reminder.

It was beautiful, and I woke up disappointed that it was only a dream song, because it really was incredibly beautiful. In my mind's ear, Kurt Waggoner's voice stopped and started abruptly the way he does, and the Lambchop-style guitar played the same notes, but with a thick-fingered stutter similar to that found on the Lambchop album Is A Woman.

Now the question is, how crazy does it sound if I write to Lambchop and say "I had a dream that your band covered Feist's "I'm Sorry," and it sounded REALLY good in my dream, so would you mind recording it for an album or a B-side to a single???"

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

I'm still sick? HOW RUDE!

Let it never be said that Aaron Burkhalter don't know how to spend a sick day.
I headed into work Monday, and my aspirin-treated headache didn't seem to be getting better.

I headed home via a grocery store to stock for my flu-like pity party to be held in our moving box-laden new place in Mount Vernon.

Canned chicken soup? $2.50 Sprite? $5/3 bottles. Aleve and Nyquil? About $10 for the smallest bottles, cuz I'm cheap like that. Eight seasons of Full House and nothing on my afternoon agenda but sleeping and enjoying my favorite San Francisco family? Priceless.

The cherry on top of my restful sick day? The brand new People Magazine featuring Jodi Sweetin in the front page story "From Meth Addict to Mom."

There's really nothing more enjoyable than sitting back with some Season 5 Full House goodness (that's the season Uncle Jesse's twins, Nicky and Alex, are born, DURING MICHELLE'S BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!!!!) and reading the confessional article about her meth addiction, the introduction to her new tattoo-laden husband and the birth of her new baby girl, Zoie.

Best information gleaned from this article:
  • Zoie is now in possession of one of several Mr. Bear dolls from the show. Sweetin gave her child "the stunt bear" for her pink and brown bedroom.

  • The original bear is in Sweetin's room.

  • Sweetin has little contact with the ever-infamous Olsen Twins, and in a barely diplomatic statement said "I wish them nothing but the best."

But of course there's got to be a dark side. Be warned to the faint of heart hoping to see their precious Stephanie Tanner in only the best light, doing an Google image search just to find the cover of the magazine for this post resulted in photos of Sweeting wearing purple hot pants and straddling her new hubby at a bar and several articles commenting on the size of Sweetin's maternally-enhanced chest with the words "Full Boobs." I'm still recovering.

Several doses of Nyquil and some lovely naps soundtracked by episodes of the greatest family television show ABC ever produced and I'm back at work and feeling pretty good.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

R.I.P. Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley passed away Monday from heart failure.

I don't have anything of major significance to say about him that's not already noted many other places, including this article from the L.A. Times.

I will say though, I find it unconscionable that the article lists U2 and, ugh, George Michael among those who stole the "Bo Diddley beat" but not once mentions Bow Wow Wow or the song I Want Candy.

Pffff...

In the mean time, enjoy this track by Bo Diddley while I run to the store and fix a major hole in my CD collection:

Who Do You Love